Second Chances
by Lysana
Summary: On the planet Nirauan, Luke and Mara Jade discovered a secret: an unborn clone of Grand Admiral Thrawn. To save their own lives, they sacrificed his... but what if they went back and gave him a second chance? He was utterly innocent, after all. And they don't know it, but he's badly needed. With the Yuuzhan Vong invasion looming, can his survival turn the tide? AU. Ch 1 is posted!


This fanfic is dedicated to everyone who writes (or draws, or paints, or sculpts, or sings, etc...) any fanworks about Grand Admiral Thrawn or especially about his clone. To create _art_ in honor of them... now, that is something special.

**"Whatever the original Thrawn might have done, this particular being hasn't done anything wrong. Certainly nothing that deserves a summary execution."** -Luke Skywalker, _Vision of the Future_

* * *

_Illustrations and a full-size versison of my cover picture for this fanfic are on my DeviantArt account. My name there is Lysana2124. All pictures for this fic will have "Second Chances" at the beginning of their titles._

Author's Note: This story has been simmering for years, ever since I read 'Vision of the Future' by Timothy Zahn. The death of the innocent clone always bothered me deeply, and now I'm finally writing something to set it right.

A few days ago (at this writing) I re-read some key scenes from the novel. Somehow I had thought that Luke and Mara simply murdered the clone for being Thrawn's clone; but to my immense relief, I found out that I was remembering it wrong. In fact, they even had a brief discussion about how they should _not_ do that! I'm glad, because I always hated the thought of them doing something so Dark Side.

Still, when they were faced with a chance to save their own lives at the cost of his, they didn't hesitate. What's with that? Jedi can't do that kind of thing to someone. If it had been a non-cloned human (or alien) baby sleeping in a cradle by that power generator, I don't believe for a second that Luke or Mara would have even considered blowing it up. But then, _Star Wars_ isn't the first or the last setting where I've seen clones treated as less than people: by their fellow characters, and sometimes by their authors too. All I can say is, we'd better straighten out these ideas quick, because the way science is going, we may soon have cloned human people sharing our lives in the real world. If that is so, how are we going to treat them?

The name 'Thraawn' that I've given to the clone is simply one that makes sense to me, given the way they sometimes name clones in _Star Wars._

Now to end with a nod to _Sesame Street_: This fanfic is brought to you by the Japanese words 'byouin' (hospital) and 'biyouin' (beauty parlor). I have reason to know, _just a bit_, why the Chiss language of Cheunh is so difficult for humans.

* * *

Please note: the passage given here in italics is taken directly from Timothy Zahn's book 'Vision of the Future.' I did not write this part! I include it solely to show the exact point at which my fanfic begins and deviates from canon.

* * *

_It seemed like a long time before Mara gently pulled away from the embrace. "Not to put a damper on this," she said, "but we're both shivering, and we're still a long way from home. Where are we, anyway?"_

_"Back at our underground river," Luke told her, reluctantly bringing his mind back to practical matters._

_"Ah." She peered toward the stream. "What happened to our personal flood?"_

_"It seems to have ended," Luke said. "Either we drained the lake completely -"_

_"Which is __real__ unlikely."_

_"Right," Luke said. "Or else it's gotten stopped up again somehow."_

_"Probably more of the chamber wall collapsed," Mara said, reaching up to push back some of the hair that had gotten plastered across her cheek. "Or else it's jammed up with what's left of the cloning equipment."_

* * *

**Chapter 1: Destiny's Edge**

Luke froze. Slowly his head turned to face the river, his eyes gazing upstream into darkness. Mara's sudden intake of breath told him she felt it too, felt it as strongly as he did.

_The cloning equipment..._ Luke turned to Mara, his blue eyes haunted. "What did we just do?" he asked slowly.

"I think we just killed a baby," Mara replied, equally horrified.

"Come on!" Luke grabbed her hand. "Maybe it's not too late!" They were both already sprinting back the way they had come.

A step and a half later, they jolted to a sudden halt as Artoo beeped and whistled in alarm behind them.

They turned quickly back around to face the incredulous little droid. "Oh - sorry, Artoo," Luke said sheepishly, but with a note of urgency behind the words. "Look - well, Mara and I've made a terrible mistake, and we have to go back. We had no right to pay for our lives with someone else's... not even a clone's."

"That's part of the problem, isn't it?" Mara put in tensely. "Somehow... we, all of us, find ourselves thinking that clones aren't as much a part of the Force as other people, thinking they don't have as much of a right to live. We don't respect them... we find them _lesser_, somehow."

Artoo squealed indignantly, rotating his dome quickly left and right a quarter-turn.

"Yes, like droids," Luke said grimly, after a short, uneasy pause. "Remind me to give that one a lot of deep thought after we get out of here, Artoo."

The astromech droid rolled forward to meet them, warbling approvingly. Luke put a companionable hand on the top of his dome.

"Anyway, you'd better stay here, Artoo," the Jedi Master told his longtime companion. "All this water-travel isn't good for your circuits. Besides..." His voice turned resolute. "If we don't make it back, you need to find your way back to the X-wing and take the information you downloaded here back to Coruscant."

Artoo half-shrieked a quick collection of beeps. The droid's mechanical voice was high and piercing with an old, familiar fear for his Jedi friend, and for Mara too. But there was a certain resignation behind it, and buried even deeper, a certain loving pride.

"Don't worry," Mara said reassuringly. "We'll do everything we can to come back to you - everything short of sacrificing another life, that is. _This_ time."

Hearing Artoo's low, worried warble behind them, they spun determinedly forward to face the river again. It was nowhere near filling the tunnel now, but it was flowing swiftly away from the direction they needed to go. The water still rose high enough up the curved walls of the tunnel that there was no chance of footing beside it.

"Mara? What do you think?" Luke asked, glancing from the current to her thoughtful face. "Breathing won't be a problem for now, but a trip upstream won't be as quick as going downstream."

Mara was gazing hard at the river, and Luke could feel the intensity of her thoughts as she matched herself against the problem. "We need a prow," she said in a low, tight voice.

"A prow?" Luke said blankly. Then his eyes showed a sudden flash of understanding. "Like on a sailing ship. We need to cut the water -" He stopped. "Mara, our lightsabers!"

"That's it!" she agreed, excited. "We can use them to split the current ahead of us." As she snapped her weapon free of her belt and ignited it, Luke was already doing the same with his.

"Come on!" Mara finished. She splashed forward into the water, sending her lightsaber spinning in front of her to stab point-downward into the center of the deceptively quiet-looking stream.

The blade hissed and steamed, sending up billowing clouds of water vapor that gleamed bluish-white in the darkness of the cavern. For a second, the top of the lightsaber's hilt jerked forward away from Mara as the current caught the blade. But as Luke stepped into the water a few meters behind her, she got a firmer Force grip on the weapon and steadied it in a hilt-upward vertical position. Luke, forewarned and more experienced as a Jedi, maintained control of his lightsaber as he settled it into place a meter ahead of him.

Water seethed around the blades of the glowing Jedi weapons, rushing aside with a near-electric crackle into a V-shaped parted stream a step ahead of each warrior. Within the vees, water still flowed gently around Mara's and Luke's submerged legs. The entire section of the river was hazily lit from below, brilliant peridot green blending into soft blue.

The whole effect was very beautiful, something like the underwater lighting that might be seen at a luxury swim-resort at night, but Luke and Mara hardly noticed the extraordinary show. With their first few steps upstream, they discovered that the drag of the river against their legs was indeed much less than it would otherwise have been. They mentally held their lightsabers a fixed distance ahead of themselves and pressed forward.

"Luke?" Mara called quietly back to him a few minutes later. "How do those muscle-endurance techniques work again?"

The blue-eyed Jedi Master touched his beloved's mind with a gentle, wordless reminder, showing her once again how to do the simple meditations he was already performing. He felt the quiet note of her thanks as she quickly picked up the rhythm she had learned just days earlier.

Tired and fighting hypothermia from the chill water, but freshly determined now that they were fighting to save a life, the Jedi couple forged ahead in the very direction from which they had so recently escaped.

* * *

"There it is," Mara said, gesturing ahead to the narrow archway where the tunnel opened out into the larger chamber that was their destination. Their lightsabers, no longer needed, hung once again by their belts.

The water was only shin-high here, though as they moved out into the chamber they could see moisture-darkened walls and large drops of water still falling here and there from the domed ceiling. The furniture that had been stacked so neatly beneath the plastic sheeting along one wall was now tossed and jumbled across the wide room. A chair and part of the ruined bed were stabbed right through what was left of the computer array, half-submerged in the recessed lower central area of the floor.

Clearly, the entire chamber had been flooded for a time, all the way to the top of the dome. Luke's hunch had been right; if they had stayed in the room, they would certainly have died.

Now, though, it seemed safe enough for the moment. There was no immediate danger sense from the Force, though an ominous undercurrent of feeling warned both Jedi that the damaged area might not remain stable forever.

Slowly, in unspoken accord, Luke and Mara lifted their eyes to face the cloning alcove. They were met with a horrifying and painful sight.

The small, once-elegant room was devastated and torn by the explosion they had engineered. Wreckage was everywhere. The fusion generator had been set in the left-hand wall; with its detonation, it had flung everything generally to the right.

A large, blasted section of the generator's shell lay beside the splintered-off base of what had once been the cloning tank. Pieces of the cylindrical tank itself, its round lid, and torn, useless lengths of tubing and wires had been scattered across the floor. Even the walls were broken, pitted with black, gaping craters where the explosion had gouged out the stone. The whole thing was framed with haphazard pieces of broken transparisteel from the panel that had closed off the alcove: the work of Mara Jade's Paparak cross-cut from earlier.

At the far right corner of the small room, tangled in and under the debris and looking terribly, terribly young, was the silent clone of Thrawn. He was lying more or less on his back, with his head tilted back and his face turned toward them. One arm was tossed heedlessly across his chest, and the other was flung out past his face, just inches from a jagged, protruding shard of the transparisteel pane, with his hand resting in the water that lapped up close to the alcove's raised floor.

Luke and Mara stared for just a second in mutual horror, then quickly made their way around the room's raised outer circle to the front of the small cloning chamber. Their sodden boots splashed through the foot-deep water as they walked, then came to a stop a moment later, facing the alcove. Up close, the sight of what their thoughtless violence had done was even more terrible.

The clone was badly injured. Wounds and purplish bruises stood out starkly all over his still body. His blood looked very red, and very human. Beneath the wounds, his alien, normally blue skin had turned a pale, scary shade of gray. But most horrifying of all were the Chiss clone's eyes. Their light had completely gone out. Half-open and staring blankly, they showed a flat, waxy-looking yellow instead of the vibrant red glow they should have held.

"This is what we did to him," Luke said, appalled.

"Do you think he's still alive?" Mara asked.

"I don't know." Luke narrowed his eyes, looking speculatively at the heap of wreckage and considering how it could best be moved without further injuring the clone. "But we're going to find out."

Working together, with an occasional touch of stabilizing help from the Force, they shifted several of the larger pieces of material away from Thrawn's clone. Somehow, working hands-on like this brought home more than anything else the extent of the destruction. It was hard to believe this was the same chamber they had seen undamaged such a short time before.

"Water and fire," Mara quoted softly. "The two things even professionals usually aren't prepared for."

Luke gave her a questioning look. "What?"

"Something I learned on an assignment years ago," she answered with a quick, sharp shake of her head. "It's not important now. Let's just get our clone out of here."

"Yeah," Luke said, sounding a little distracted as he moved aside one last big piece of metal. "Look... here, I think we can get to him now."

They scrambled up and into the alcove next to the wounded, battered clone, afraid of what they might learn but unwilling to delay. Luke put his left hand - the natural, flesh-and-blood one - on the clone's shoulder. Mara, brushing aside the short, ruined lengths of flash-learning wires that trailed from electrodes pasted to the clone's scalp, reached out to touch his quiet, pale gray face. Side by side, they stretched out to find his life-sense in the Force.

At once, a great wave of relief swept over them both. They could feel his life holding on: faint, flickering, but strong and determined.

"We need to get him into some bacta," Mara said urgently. She glanced over at Luke. "Unless you can do a Jedi healing trance for an unconscious cloned Chiss?"

Luke shook his head worriedly. "I wouldn't want to count on it," he said. "I'll do it if it comes to that, but I just don't know how much I can help him that way. Too many unknowns." He stopped for a second, wrinkling his brow as he looked at the clone. "But he's got a more urgent problem. Look, he isn't breathing. There must be water in his lungs."

"Here, let me," Mara said, moving forward to put her hands on the clone's injured chest. "Lots of times in my life, the only medical knowledge around has been what I brought with me." Wincing as she pressed against his bruises and lacerations, she found the right spot and gave a short, sharp jab upward into the clone's torso.

His gray-skinned chest heaved with the pressure. Water mixed with cloning fluid gushed out of his mouth, and he coughed several times but did not stir other than that. Almost half a minute later, though, his chest rose again as he started, haltingly and unevenly, to breathe on his own.

Mara unconsciously relaxed her shoulders, letting out a slow breath of her own. "Good," she said. "That's the first thing he'll need to give him a fighting chance at life. Now we just - Wait!" she interrupted herself, noticing something. "Luke, take a look at this!"

Following the sudden tilt of Mara's head, Luke's eyes went to the far right wall of the cloning alcove. There, just a few meters from the base of the broken-off Spaarti cylinder, were the two ysalamiri they'd seen earlier. Somehow, the little Force-blocking creatures and their artificial wooden nutrient-feeding surface had escaped the worst fury of the explosion. A few blackened areas marked the synthetic bark where they clung, but aside from that, the gold-furred animals and their habitat were unharmed. Even a prolonged dip in the floodwaters didn't seem to have bothered them, to judge by the tranquil expressions on their sleepy pseudoreptilian faces.

"Well, that's a surprise," Luke said, blinking at the odd lack of damage."I wonder why they didn't get blown to ribbons?"

"Just lucky, I guess," Mara answered. "Let's not get too close to them. I don't feel like playing any more 'Look, Mother, no Force!' games today."

"That's for sure," Luke agreed wearily. "Anyway, we can't take them with us. Even if we could handle the trip out of here without Jedi powers - which I wouldn't bet a bent sabacc chip on - we have no way to get them off their nutrient wall without killing them. But they'll probably be fine. If they survived the explosion and the flood, I'm guessing they'll just sit tight here until someone from upstairs comes down to inspect the damage and finds them."

"At which point they'll also find out about the cloning setup," Mara put in. "And _by_ which point, we'd better be long gone."

"Agreed," Luke said. With that, he turned his attention sharply back to their injured clone. After a moment of careful observation, he nodded. "He's still breathing well. I think it'll be safe to move him. Let's get going." Standing up and stepping back down into the shallow water outside the alcove, he reached out to the Force and gently floated the clone up and free of the last bits of debris.

Mara, instead of joining Luke at once, turned away and started looking through the wreckage for something suitably large, flat, and not too sharp. "We'll need to rig some kind of a stretcher -"

"It's okay," Luke broke in. "I've got him."

Looking at the steady expression on Luke's face and the impossibly tranquil look in his eyes, Mara realized that he was right. _Do or do not; there is no 'try.'_ Unquestionably, in this instance, Luke would _do_.

Mara's love for Luke washed over her again as she watched him. The sandy-haired Jedi was focusing on his task with tender concern. She could feel it radiating out from him through the Force, and it was plain to see too in the lines of his back and shoulders. It was like standing behind a nurse or a medical droid and watching as they anxiously worked to care for a patient.

"All right," she said. "You float him, and I'll take care of any assorted obstacles we run into along the way."

Luke nodded once, abstractedly, and they both started along the raised pathway around the main chamber's outer edge. A few meters along, Mara quietly stepped ahead of Luke and their young charge to take point. Even through his distracted concentration, she could feel Luke's appreciation and his respect for her ability to handle whatever they might find.

The trip was reasonably uneventful, though, until they got to the actual underground river section of the tunnels. Mara and Luke conferred briefly, then she simply walked behind him down the middle of the stream, breaking up the current so it wouldn't impede him too much while he was occupied with his burden.

After a moment, she decided to reprise their earlier lightsaber trick, only floating it blade-down in the current behind her instead of in front. It was just easier that way, and she was already getting so tired that she was afraid if she thought about it too hard she would collapse. So instead, she simply focused on what they were doing and put her own fatigue out of her mind as far as she could.

It seemed like it was sooner than it should have been when they arrived back at the cave where they had left the now very anxious Artoo. The little droid squealed with relief as they sloshed out of the water and Luke lowered the clone to the rocky ground. Stepping out behind him, Mara wearily switched off her lightsaber and called it back to her hand, then clipped it to her belt. A bare second later, Luke and Mara collapsed themselves, breathing heavily and slowly as they struggled to recover from their extreme physical and mental exertion and long exposure to cold.

Bouncing agitatedly from side to side on his wheels, R2-D2 rolled quickly forward and extended his little sensor probe. He kept up a stream of worried chitters as he scanned first Luke and then Mara.

Apparently satisfied with their overall health, he contented himself with only a couple of reproving, solicitous beeps in their direction. Then he swiveled around to examine the deathly-still clone.

Curious, he rolled slowly forward, twittering in a thoughtful undertone. He cast a speculative look from his visual sensors over the young alien, then treated him to the same scanning examination that he had just given Luke and Mara.

Finally, with what was obviously the droid equivalent of a sigh of relief, he rocked back slightly on his wheels and retracted his sensor probe. As he slid the panel closed over it, he turned back to the recovering Luke and Mara and gave them a tartly indignant series of beeps, whistles, and squeals.

The two humans were sitting up now, already somewhat better off for their few minutes' rest. Mara put a hand to one side of her head, while Luke blinked several times as if he was trying to focus his thoughts. But at Artoo's droid-language pronouncement, they both turned their heads to look at him.

"Huh?" Mara asked Luke, unable to interpret Artoo's warbling speech the way he could. "What's he say?"

Luke's face turned slightly red across the cheeks. His voice held a rather sheepish sound as he answered.

"Artoo says, and I quote exactly, 'He doesn't look so scary.' "

Mara was silent for a moment. "Ouch," she said at last. "I guess we deserved that." Her gaze flickered across to the wounded clone, then she turned it apologetically on Luke's droid. "You're right, Artoo," she said quietly. "He certainly wasn't the one who ended up hurting _us_."

* * *

After a few more minutes' rest, Luke and Mara felt strong enough to continue the journey. Artoo, gurgling woefully, nevertheless gamely rolled himself into the river to float along at the head of the party. Behind him was the clone, still unconscious and hovering several inches above the water in the grip of Luke's Force powers. Next came Luke, quiet and focused amid his weariness, followed by an exhausted but still strong and capable Mara.

"I wonder how he managed to survive so long underwater?" Mara mused aloud, looking ahead past Luke at the limp form of their rescued clone.

"Beats me," Luke replied, puzzled. "He must have gone without air for quite some time. Maybe hours - I'm not sure how long you and I were out of it after we escaped the first time."

Ahead of them, Artoo squealed authoritatively with a definite knowledgeable sound in his tone.

"Mammalian dive reflex," Luke said, translating. He paused as Artoo continued speaking, then resumed his interpretation for Mara's benefit. He sounded as interested as she felt. "He says it's especially strong in young creatures, and that apparently, newly-created clones count." Another pause, while Artoo finished his explanation with a series of squeaks and almost musical tones. "The heart rate slows down, and the body conserves oxygen for critical systems, to stay alive."

"Sounds a little like one of Thrawn's strategies," Mara commented wryly. "If you can imagine what he'd do in a tight spot, that is."

"That's for sure," Luke agreed, casting a worried glance himself at the clone. "Speaking of tight spots, we'd better get him back to the ship quick. I don't know how much longer he can make it without some kind of serious treatment."

Fortunately, as one of the native, avian Qom Jha people had told them, the tunnel ended a short distance farther along where the river poured out through a small opening in a cliff face. It was dark when they reached the waterfall exit, but the stars and their glow rods gave plenty of light to see by.

Actually, Luke reflected, it was just as well that it was night when they made their escape. It would tend to slow down any searchers who might still be after them from earlier.

"Right," Mara murmured next to him, answering his thought as if that were how they'd always done things. "But don't rely on it too much. If they _really_ want to find us - which I still kind of doubt, but you never know - they'll have sensors and all kinds of other good stuff in on the picture."

"True," Luke agreed. "We'd better just get out of here right away."

Looking around at the area outside the tunnel mouth, they saw a ledge off to the side that looked big enough to hold all of them. Between them, Luke and Mara Force-floated their little group over to it one at a time.

"Now what?" Mara asked. "I don't see any ready way to get down."

_Jedi Sky Walker!_ a familiar voice sounded in their minds. There was a strong sense of outrage and surprise behind the words. _What are you doing?_

Artoo warbled in quiet dismay. Luke and Mara looked up, seeing a cluster of fluttering wings and shadows descending quickly toward them, black silhouettes against the stars.

Silent and purposeful, the leathery-winged alien named Hunter Of Winds and his small group of companions flapped their way to a landing. Some of them stood upright on the ledge in front of Luke and Mara's party, while others found perches on small knobs and ridges of the cliff face itself.

"Hello, Hunter Of Winds," Luke said, responding to the avian leader's Force-driven communication. He spread his hands placatingly. "We're just trying to escape from this place. If we can get to our ship-"

_You have brought a Threatener with you!_ Hunter Of Winds accused, spreading his wings and shaking them challengingly. Open rage and suspicion wrapped around him now like a cloak. Around him, the other Qom Qae and Qom Jha fluttered and shifted with the same agitation, but seemed content to let him be their spokesperson.

"He's not threatening anyone," Mara said, stepping up to stand close beside Luke. At the same time, she was placing herself protectively in front of the clone. Her emerald-green eyes flashed fearlessly as she stared down the small but dangerous Qom Qae leader. "We almost killed him, but he wasn't hurting us. He _couldn't_. He wasn't even awake." She paused, giving the Qom Qae an even more challenging look. "He's a child, like your son."

Hunter Of Winds cocked his head questioningly to one side. Stepping forward curiously, most of his anger fading, he moved toward the clone.

Mara tensed, but Luke put a calming hand on her shoulder. She stepped aside, letting Hunter Of Winds pass.

After a brief, careful examination of the clone's face, Hunter Of Winds stepped back and looked up at the two human Jedi. _Yes, it is true,_ he said, considerably calmer now. _I can sense that he is very young. But that brings another question into view. Why are you taking him from his nesting?_

"That's a good question, actually," Luke said, more than a little shamefaced. "We don't really have any right to take him away with us. But we need to heal him..." He trailed off and glanced at Mara, aware that they hadn't actually discussed this point. "And once he's better and can make a decision, we'll give him the choice to return here if he wants."

"Right," Mara agreed grimly. "We definitely don't want to add kidnapping to our list of crimes against this being."

Hunter Of Winds tilted his head again, his beak opening and closing slightly as he considered. _I can scent more in this wind than you are speaking openly, Jedi Sky Walker and Jaded Of Mara,_ he said finally. _But for my people as much as for you, there is no time for longer discussion._ He gestured with a wing at the group of other avians around him. _We will take you back to your ship now. The ones in the High Tower will be searching for you, and it will be safer for all if they do not find you. We who belong to this world, so my son explains, will not be harmed so long as we stay far from the Tower._

_And…_ he finished, fixing a keen look on Luke's face before turning the same hunting stare on Mara, _as you said, you must take your Threatener child home to your own nesting so that his wounds can be closed._

"Right," Mara said briskly. "And thank you, Hunter Of Winds. All of you, too," she added, looking around at the other Qom Qae and Qom Jha. "I understand that you're not just doing it for us, but we appreciate the ride. Flying isn't exactly one of our strong points."

Beside her, Luke was already kneeling next to Artoo and reaching out a hand. The little droid woefully but obediently opened his small storage compartment, and Luke pulled out the woven netting of syntherope that had supported Artoo the last time they were carried by Nirauan's native people. "Come on, Artoo," Luke said soothingly. "It's not so bad."

Artoo moaned in weary resignation, sounding remarkably like his counterpart C-3PO. "Ohh…" But he made no other protest, instead swiveling his dome to give a concerned look at the wounded clone, as he allowed Luke to rig him up for flight.

A moment later, they were all on their way. The flight was quick, smooth, and uneventful. Hunter Of Winds himself, along with two of his companions who seemed to be among the older of the avian group, were taking special care to give a smooth ride to the injured 'Threatener child.'

Luke smiled tiredly, reassured by the sight. Clearly, their concern for him as a child ranked high enough to overrule their fear of him as a Threatener.

* * *

"Why not 'Friend Of Jedi'?" Mara was saying. With a start, Luke realized that his attention had been wavering. _I must be more tired than I thought!_ Reaching for focus, he brought his mind back to the here and now. Mara and Hunter Of Winds, it seemed, were discussing possible adult names for the latter's son: Child Of Winds, the young Qom Qae who had been so bravely of help to them when the rest of his people had stood aside in doubt or fear or unwillingness to involve themselves in the concerns of aliens.

Luke listened with half a mind to their conversation, the rest focusing on drawing enough strength from the Force to keep himself from simply drifting off to sleep. In a short time, though, his attention perked up as the alien fighter craft they'd stolen came into view. It was tucked into a corner of the ever-present cliffs and screened with leafy branches, but Luke recognized its compellingly curving shape well enough. Flying straight at it helped a little, too.

A few meters from the craft, the Qom Jha and Qom Qae set them carefully down and fluttered to an assortment of nearby perches.

"Thank you," Luke said gravely to the small, avian people. Mara nodded her agreement, and Artoo whistled in appreciation of his own – though partly, no doubt, for the _end_ of the flight as well as for everything else.

_It is well,_ Hunter Of Winds said with formal dignity. Suddenly, Luke had the feeling he was listening to ritual words that had been spoken exactly this way on many days since ancient times. _All debts are now paid or forfeited, from each to each. You may go now, with our well-wishes and our knowledge of yours in return._

Silently and with remarkable speed, the people of Nirauan flew up from their perches and disappeared into the gloom of the night. Hunter Of Winds' thought-voice came back from a short distance, sounding less formal and, somehow, almost affectionate now. _Farewell, Jaded Of Mara and Jedi Sky Walker._ Then it faded into silence.

"Well, that was as clear a dismissal as we're likely to get," Luke said wryly. He shook his head sharply, fighting to stay alert.

Mara shot him a concerned look. "Even a Jedi has limits, huh?" she said, her voice and sense betraying a tiredness as deep as his own.

As she spoke, she was already moving toward the ship and starting to toss aside the worst of the concealing mass of branches. "Come on, let's get ourselves moving. We have to get off planet and figure out where to go for a medical facility that'll treat Grand Admiral Thrawn without hitting the ceiling in terror."

Luke and Artoo came quickly forward to help Mara. "And without locking _us_ in a triple-security detention cell," Luke added as they cleared away the last of the larger brushwood. "Either because we're their enemies, or because they expect _him_ to be." He glanced back at the clone.

Rocking back and forth, Artoo beep-whistled a short comment. _That's the problem,_ Luke mentally translated, the words coming automatically and almost at the same time as Artoo's mechanical speech.

"We'll worry about that in five minutes," Mara said firmly, opening up the trapdoor entry hatch with a quick Force touch and climbing up the alien fighter's short, retractable ladder. Seconds later she was inside. "All right, let's do this together," she called down. "First Artoo, then our scary unconscious clone."

Luke's heart ached at the bitter guilt behind his beloved's words, even though he was feeling the same thing himself. But there was no time for any of that right now. Stretching out with the Force, he sent Artoo floating up toward the small, round hatchway. He felt the touch of Mara's mind against his as she took part of the droid's weight. Together, they guided their fearless little companion up and through the opening into the ship.

"I've got him," Mara said a second later. "Okay, he's moving off to the side." There was a short, confirming whistle from Artoo.

Working as one, Luke and Mara lifted the clone, carefully angling his body to fit through the hatch. Luke felt the clone's weight settling to the deck of the alien ship, felt Mara's more fine-tuned effort with the Force as she made sure his arms and legs ended up in good alignment with his body. Then, with one last effort, Luke half-climbed and half lifted himself up the ladder and into the ship. Reaching over, he touched the control to seal the hatch.

The first thing he noticed, as the ladder retracted itself and the hatch flipped closed, was that there wasn't a lot of floor space left. All in all, this ship was triple the mass of his X-wing, with a proportionately much larger space inside than the cramped cockpit he was used to; but this was still only the rear deck of a ship intended for a crew of three. Between himself, Mara, their cloned charge lying full-length on the deck, and R2-D2, they were taking up a good portion of the available room.

The second thing he noticed was Mara's shocked, rigid focus as she crouched beside the ship's starboard wall. The curve of her back was absolutely tense with concentration and surprise.

"Luke, will you look at this." Her voice was almost inaudible with disbelief.

Luke crossed quickly to her side and hunkered down to see what she was staring at. It took him a long moment to put the pieces together.

There was a long, low rectangular access panel, which Mara had already popped open and folded down to the floor. Behind it was a folded mass of some heavy, flat translucent material. A couple lines of flowing alien script – the same as on the flight deck's control panels – ran along the upper edge of the compartment. More of the script, done in the same slightly luminescent pale blue, was printed on a smaller, square panel to the compartment's right.

Mara, her eyes narrowed in concentration, punched a short sequence of keys on a control panel beside the square. With his mind still closely entwined with hers, Luke sensed that she was drawing more on her espionage training than the Force to find the right combination.

It worked. The panel swung open to reveal a small, heavy cylindrical tank and a pair of short hoses or cables. One tube ran from the back to the left wall of the tiny compartment, and the other extended several inches from the left wall and ended in a connector that looked like it would attach to the compact tank. And centered on the ten-inch high cylinder itself was an obscurely familiar symbol…

Luke caught his breath as he recognized it, wondering if he could be wrong. But no, that was definitely the mark of Zaltin Corporation.

"This conduit must lead to a water supply tucked away inside the hull," Mara said, touching the hose that was connected at both ends. "Luke, you do realize what we're looking at?"

He did. He almost couldn't believe it, but he did. The low, collapsible rectangular tank; the water supply; the precious concentrated substance in that tiny cylinder…

"What we have here," Luke said in total amazement, "is a fully functioning bacta tank. _On a fighter ship._"

Mara was already unfolding the tank. "No time to wonder about it," she snapped, suddenly tense with urgency. "You go get us underway, then get back here and help me."

Luke didn't waste time arguing. Besides, he agreed with Mara's concern. It was high time they got out of there before the ever-present threat of pursuit could become more than just a threat. He got to his feet, grimacing in dismay at the effort it took.

"Artoo, you're with me," he said. Then he saw that the little astromech droid was already one step ahead of him.

Artoo had found a small droid-interface nook tucked into the starboard side of the archway leading to the cockpit. He had already nestled himself into it, connecting to the ship's systems and bringing them up in preparation for flight. As Luke approached, Artoo rotated his dome toward him and whistled a simple question. _Navicomputer is on line. Where to?_

Luke shook his head with an admiring chuckle. "Good old Artoo," he said as he stepped quickly past and swung himself into the pilot's chair. "I'm thinking Coruscant. Anyplace else we stop could be a risk to all of us, considering our passenger."

"I agree," Mara called back shortly. Artoo put in a terse whistle of confirmation, then subsided into making faint, barely-audible noises as he programmed the coordinates for the hyperspace jump.

Meanwhile, Luke had finished what little Artoo'd left him of the preflight checks. "Hold on back there," he called. He felt Mara's mental nod and heard Artoo's chirp, and immediately activated the repulsorlifts to bring them up and off the planet's surface. A moment later, a touch on the sleek, logically arranged alien controls, and the main sublight drive kicked in smoothly to drive them the rest of the way up into space.

He kept a careful visual watch through the viewport, with half an eye reserved for the sensor scopes, and stretched out his awareness through the Force as well in hopes of detecting any pursuers. But there was nothing. All he saw was the dawn line, creeping slowly toward them across Nirauan's quiet surface.

As the upper veils of Nirauan's atmosphere fell away behind them, Artoo and the ship's navicomputer beeped readiness almost simultaneously.

"Got it," Luke said with a quick nod. He pulled back a set of levers that were subtly different from the ones on ships he was used to, and the claw-shaped fighter slipped into hyperspace like a fish diving into water.

Luke ignored the rainbow colors playing outside the viewport, turning as he stood up from the pilot's seat and heading quickly back to join Mara on the secondary deck. "Artoo, you're in charge of running the ship for now. Just keep us heading for Coruscant and warn me if anything unusual happens."

Artoo gave a skeptical series of beeps and squeals. From beyond him, Mara commented, "It'd have to work hard to get any more unusual than things already are."

"Actually, that's just about what Artoo said," Luke told her as he stepped through the archway and she came into full view. "And you're both right. The last few days have been enough to make a Tatooine sandstorm look quiet."

He crouched down beside Mara and their still-unconscious charge. A quick glance to his left showed him that the collapsible field bacta tank was ready. In perhaps three minutes, Mara had gotten it completely unfolded and half-filled, its self-sealing lid leaning against the cabin wall beside it.

"The breathing mask is right here," Mara said, holding it up. She swayed a little, and only then did Luke realize just how desperately tired she was. With a shock of guilt, he realized that he'd been sensing it all along through the Force, but feeling it through the filter of his own exhaustion, he hadn't caught on to the fact that the far greater fatigue was hers.

"Mara!" He reached out a hand to steady her shoulder.

"It's all right," she said grimly. "But do you think you can lift him into the tank? I feel... I feel all wobbly. In the Force. I don't think I can do it without bashing him into the sides." She swayed again, reaching up to grab his hand on her shoulder for balance and half-leaning into his support. Then she steadied herself, but Luke could feel her continuing shakiness.

"I can," Luke said steadily. He knew she could feel his admiration for all that she had done on their harrowing adventure. Only partially trained and brand-new to being a full Jedi, she had nevertheless kept up with challenges that were almost ruinously draining to a Master. At the same time, he knew that she would never, never have let anyone else see her displaying this level of fatigue... but that now, with him, it was amazingly all right.

Luke got a Force grip on the injured Chiss and started to slowly lift him toward the bacta tank. At that moment, the clone snapped awake. A faint yellow lamp kindled behind his eyes, and he looked around wildly. Disoriented, he thrust out his hands and feet in an unruly scramble. Then he froze. A rapid series of incomprehensible alien words came from his ashy blue-gray lips. His Force-sense swirled palpably in the air: he was at once alert and confused, frightened and sharply considering. Washing across and through all of it was a thick red haze of pain.

"_Ariantinkreela?_" he finished.

Reacting too quickly for thought, Mara moved at the speed of her feelings. She reached out, grabbed the young clone's right hand with both of hers, and held it.

"It's all right," she said. "Don't worry. You're badly injured, but we're going to treat you in our bacta tank and then you'll be fine."

The clone focused his shockingly pale yellow eyes on Mara's face. He paused, evidently sifting through memories of language in his mind, then nodded once.

"Bacta," he said clearly in Basic. "Yes..." Then his eyes closed and his head lolled to the side. All the tension went out of him in the same instant, as he abruptly and decisively relinquished consciousness, giving himself over with absolute trust into Luke and Mara's care.

There was an awestruck silence between the two Jedi for several seconds.

"Wow..." Luke said finally. "Did you feel that wave of trust he just sent toward us?" He paused uncomfortably. "I'm not so sure we deserved it."

"No, we didn't," Mara agreed grimly. "But let's not fail in it now. Here, let's get him in the bacta -" She stopped and looked down, suddenly catching up to the fact that she was still holding the clone's hand. Ruefully she let go, instead adding her strength to Luke's as they floated their young patient up and into the bacta tank and settled him in place. Luke carefully applied the breathing mask, then pressed the button to fill the rest of the tank with its lifesaving bacta. Finally, he set the transparent lid onto the tank and let it seal itself.

As the rising fluid took over supporting the clone's weight, the two Jedi let go of their combined effort with the Force and let their exhausted minds and bodies relax with a matched pair of slow breaths.

"There's another thing I didn't know about myself," Mara said with a self-conscious glance down at her hands, remembering how quickly she had reached out to the frightened young clone. "Who would have thought I had maternal instincts?"

Irrelevant as it was at that moment, Luke couldn't help noticing how beautiful she looked with her scraggly wet hair plastered to the sides of her head and falling in her face. _I'm so incredibly lucky to have her,_ he thought, _and to get the chance to let her have me._ He still felt that he was shaking inside at how close he'd come to losing her, and he wondered if he would ever stop.

Smiling a little, he spread his hands. "Don't kick me for saying this, Mara," he said, only half-kidding, "but you're a loving person. I'd be shocked if you _didn't_ have those feelings." He looked over at the now peacefully sleeping clone in the alien ship's bacta tank. "You know, I feel awfully protective too," he added. "It's our fault he's hurt, and it's not his fault that... well... anything. But it's more than that. He's just so _young!_"

"I know," Mara said thoughtfully. "He looks so much like Grand Admiral Thrawn. It's so odd to think of him as a kid. But he really is, isn't he?"

On the port side of the little area, opposite from the bacta tank, a utilitarian, thinly padded foldaway bench was tucked up against the wall. Luke folded it down and sat on it, only just steady enough to sit down smoothly and keep from falling outright onto the rust-red cushions. Reaching up to touch Mara's shoulder, he wordlessly invited her to join him. She did so, leaning her tired head and graceful, muscular body against his right side. Luke found the sensation incredibly comfortable, as if she had always belonged there.

"He sure is," he agreed in a low, calm voice. A feeling of peace suffused him, and he knew Mara felt it too. _Jedi don't always get the chance to fix their mistakes,_ he reflected, _or to save the lives they fail to rightly protect._ He put his arm around Mara and held her close, still marveling at the way she accepted and even welcomed - and _returned!_ - his affection.

"Well, I guess it's settled," he finished aloud. "We're parents now."

Mara snuggled contentedly up against Luke and gazed at the wonderfully trusting clone. Was his skin already starting to hold a faint, warm flush of blue, as the bacta repaired his undeserved wounds?

"Yes," she answered Luke softly. "If he wants us to be."

* * *

Apparently the Chiss people had remarkable natural healing abilities. After only two days in the bacta tank, their clone woke up. His skin was now a healthy blue again, and the wounds had mostly faded.

Luke and Mara were taking a break from piloting, allowing Artoo to fly the ship. They were sitting once again on the little bench with its flat, dusty-red cushions, in the small, alien, but oddly comfortable rear deck of their appropriated ship.

All at once, they felt the clone's swiftly gathering alertness as his thoughts and awareness sharpened into focus. Turning his head, he looked at them through the shimmery bacta fluid with a set of eyes that were now properly red and brilliant.

Luke stood up halfway, moving to step toward the bacta tank, as Mara leaned forward beside him. But the Grand Admiral's clone, seeing them, held up a blue hand in a calm, assured gesture.

_Wait,_ the movement and his expression seemed to say. _Not yet. I will wait, too._

* * *

When Luke came back to the secondary deck several hours later, Thrawn's clone saw him at once and inclined his head to show that he was ready to emerge. His blue-black hair, short but loosely flowing in the fluid's weightlessness, drifted with the motion.

Luke crossed to the tank and knelt down beside it, opening the lid and setting it aside. He extended his right hand and the clone took it, his grip strong and certain as he accepted Luke's help in rising to his feet.

On the fold-down bench, Luke had set out a towel and a simple, loosely-cut black outfit of shirt and trousers that they'd found in a storage compartment. The clone took these, dried himself off, and quickly dressed himself. His bacta-damp hair was still plastered somewhat to his head, but now he was quite presentable. He looked rather like a civilian version of the Chiss soldiers back on Nirauan.

Except, of course, that he also looked exactly like Grand Admiral Thrawn.

"Welcome," Luke said, feeling awkward. "I'm - I'm glad you're feeling better."

"Thank you," the newly awakened clone said in Thrawn's voice. Stepping back to the bacta tank, he simply dropped the towel into it. Then he matter-of-factly reached down, resealed the lid, and pressed a quick series of buttons on the control pad. A quiet humming started from some unseen machinery in the hull wall behind the tank.

Straightening up, he looked at Luke with a cool, level gaze. "The towel is designed to be absorbed," he explained. "It will take several hours for the system to filter out the concentrated bacta and return it and the water to their respective storage tanks."

"Efficient," Luke murmured, impressed anew at the incredible capabilities of this compact ship's technology. He turned his head to glance over his shoulder toward the flight deck. "Mara, our guest is up and about," he called.

The clone turned to look in the same direction, innate curiosity and alertness evident in every nuance of his pose and motions. His head tilted slightly to one side as he listened to the quick, competent sounds of Mara's movements, and he looked straight at her as she came through the archway.

"I'm leaving Artoo in charge of piloting the ship again," she told Luke. Then she turned her head slightly to meet their passenger's gaze. Luke could sense her watchfulness as she sized up the situation. She was not afraid, not suspicious or distrusting; simply watchful.

"Hello," Mara said simply, her brilliant green eyes focused on the clone's face.

"Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade," he acknowledged them both gravely. He gestured to the low-lying bacta tank. "You saved my life. I must thank you both. But I'm surprised. I might have expected you to kill me on sight."

Luke and Mara exchanged a guilty look. "Well, you see..." Luke began, spreading his hands. He trailed off awkwardly, too ashamed to be able to think of a clear way to put what he wanted to say.

"Ah, is that so?" There was a flash of keen interest in the clone's red eyes as he rapidly pieced it together from their reactions. "I see. You _did_ try to kill me...? And then you must have had second thoughts. Well, I still have to thank you. But I do hope you won't have third ones." Something vulnerable and young showed in his face for an instant, then it passed or he hid it.

"It wasn't exactly that," Mara said, shaking her head unhappily and sending her red-gold hair tumbling about her face. "But too, too close." As the clone of Admiral Thrawn listened intently in fascination, she reached out to the Force for strength and calm, and began to tell the story of how they had found him.

Beside her, Luke quietly took her hand, adding to the fragile sense of stability that she felt she so desperately needed. Now and then he put in comments of his own, or simply took over speaking for a while. His voice was low, calm and steady. A few days ago, she would have envied his composure. Now she knew he really didn't feel that peaceful at all. It was just another sign of his quiet inner strength.

Thrawn's clone was an obliging audience. He listened attentively, grave intelligence behind his fiery young eyes, and did not interrupt even when they told of their decision to kill him.

"We didn't want to execute you," Mara said. "We knew you hadn't done anything wrong. But when we saw a way to save ourselves, and we knew it would take killing you to do it..." She closed her eyes for a second and shook her head hard, as if she could shake away the truth of the choice they'd made. "It was just too convenient, I guess. All the questions and problems and fears that your existence - your _life_ - raises, they would never have to be faced. And we'd be able to live with ourselves... Only we couldn't," she finished. Her voice wavered, but her eyes, looking into the clone's, were firm.

"She's right," Luke said. "We'd only just escaped from the flooding chamber when it hit us like a knife in the gut. We had to go back and try to save you, because we'd finally realized our lives weren't worth anything at all if we were willing to kill an innocent to protect ourselves."

Luke fell silent. The blue-skinned Chiss clone looked at him and Mara for a long moment, his glowing eyes thoughtful and considering. His resemblance to Grand Admiral Thrawn was uncanny.

"This is one of the most unique situations I can remember," he said at last. The left-hand corner of his mouth twitched in a small smile. "It is certainly the most unique one I have ever been in myself! Here I am, the final master-stroke of the mind that all my memories come from, and I _know_ that he never expected or planned for an outcome like this!"  
He shook his head in wonderment. "I've just been casually almost-killed, then impulsively rescued, by two of my father's most dangerous enemies."

Alert, he quickly caught their flicker of reaction to his choice of a term for Thrawn. "Does it surprise you? He thought of me as his child," he said calmly. "Of course, generally no one else was to know that I am not him - but since you two found me in a cloning cylinder, that hardly seems possible, at least with you. In fact..." He paused thoughtfully. "I believe it will be best not to attempt such a deception with anyone. As for the rest of what I should do now..."

He looked down for a moment, obviously deep in thought. When he raised his face again, the expression was as sharp as a laser.

"I need to ask a favor of you," he said in a voice filled with that same intent focus. "I need information. Ten years must have passed since the last knowledge I have, if that part of Thrawn's plan has not also gone awry."

"We're a little out of the loop ourselves," Luke admitted. "Not by ten years, though. And you're right, that's how long it has been since Thrawn's death. We'll tell you what we can." He paused. "By the way, what should we call you?"

The young clone's eyes burned brighter, blood-red and shining with the fierce living spirit behind them. "I am Thraawn," he said. The doubled 'a' made a vowel sound that was subtly longer than in the original Thrawn's name. Equally subtle and just as unmistakable was Thraawn's quiet pride in his own unique and personal identity.

"Of course," Mara murmured. Unbidden, the thought passed between her and Luke: _This is the spirit we almost killed._ Aloud, she continued, "The doubled letters in the names of clones. I suppose we should have realized that would be your name."

"Not necessarily," Thraawn said. "Not all clones are named this way. But I am."

Luke nodded. "It's good to meet you, Thraawn." Then, getting back to the cloned strategist's question, he and Mara quickly outlined the recent events in the New Republic: the mysterious appearance of pirate ships running with cloned crews, the growing tension and disorder brought on by recently unearthed information about the decades-old Caamasi massacre... and the Empire's slow decline to barely a thousand star systems, its remaining military force held together by the leadership of the apparently quite competent Admiral Pellaeon.

Thraawn listened, seeming deeply concerned by their description of the Empire's decline. But at their mention of its military leader, a more personal feeling touched his expression.

"Indeed? Pellaeon is still alive?" Thraawn looked and sounded very pleased. "I'm very glad to hear that. He was a good friend. I miss him." He stopped, puzzled. "This is interesting, having someone else's memories. Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself of who I am. But I will be happy to see him."

"Speaking of that..." Luke said. "We're on our way to Coruscant right now, but I want to make sure you know that you're not our prisoner. If you want to go back to Nirauan, or be left somewhere else... then that's what we'll do."

Thraawn considered. "No, I will come with you. The Empire is likely to trust me already - though this may interfere with that somewhat - as are the people of my base back on Nirauan. But your Rebellion -" He stopped. "No, it is not fair to call you that now. After twenty years you have earned the right to be called the New Republic."

Mara glanced at Luke, the two Jedi sharing a quick flash of memories of just what that long and difficult twenty-year time had held. "Thank you," Mara said with only a touch of irony. "Though it's not exactly _my_ New Republic. I'm a part of an independent smuggler organization."

"I see," Thraawn answered her. The words held no trace of disrespect for her profession. "The New Republic," he continued, "is likely to fear and suspect my motives if I go to any of Thrawn's old allies now. And I can't afford that. If ten more years have passed, we have very little time..."

He shook his head, recalling his focus from whatever concern had distracted him. "I will come to Coruscant as your guest. It is the only way to have even a chance of gaining their trust."

Luke looked at hm curiously. "You don't sound like Thrawn."

"Should I?" Thraawn inquired. "But no, I believe I am thinking much the same way as he would in this situation. In ten years, many things have changed."

"Indeed they have," Luke said. He paused as a thought struck him. "I'm sorry, we haven't offered you any hospitality! I'm slightly acquainted with bacta tanks myself, and one thing I remember is that they always leave a person very hungry."

"That does seem to be the case," Thraawn agreed gravely. His lips twitched, and his eyes danced with not-so-hidden merriment, seeming very young in his adult-looking face. "I'll definitely be happy to accept."

Luke turned to Mara with a courtly half-bow. "What can we offer our esteemed guest?" he asked with mock formality.

Mara shrugged, her own eyes twinkling. "Nothing fancy around here, I'm afraid." She turned to Thraawn. "How do you like ration bars?"

"As far as I know, I like them just fine," he said with a touch of humor. "Shall we find out?"

* * *

A few minutes of preparation saw them all settled on the floor of the rear deck and sharing an impromptu picnic. Even Artoo, despite not needing to eat, had left the ship on autopilot for the moment and rolled back to join them. With the red-cushioned bench folded up and stowed against the wall, there was just enough room for the four companions next to the still-cycling bacta tank.

"You really were out of it when you first woke up before we got you into the bacta," Luke commented to Thraawn between bites of a cylindrical grain-and-spice flavored bar. "I've been wondering what that language was that you were speaking at first - was it the Chiss language?"

"Yes, that was Cheunh," Thraawn confirmed.

"I think I remember a little of what you said," Luke told him. "The part at the end. 'Ariantinkreela,' I think it was."

Thraawn chuckled. It was a surprisingly friendly and open sound. "Well, _that_ means 'How would you like the lemon-drops on your hyperdrive?' " he informed them wryly. "But I remember. I wanted to know the situation, and if there was an attack. I was quite disoriented, as you can imagine. It's not often I've found myself so confused."

"What I'm surprised by," Mara said, "is that we found this bacta tank here in the first place. What ever made your people decide to put one on a ship this small?

Artoo whistled, giving Thraawn a curious look that was no less vivid for his lack of humanoid features.

"Artoo says he'd like to know too," Luke said, translating for the blue-and-white droid. "Which makes three of us. Why is it here?"

"Thrawn played scenario strategy games as a child," Thraawn said mildly. A small smile touched his lips. "Fanciful things, with primitive weapons, mythical creatures, and a great deal of magic. All imaginary, of course, and played out in conversation and diagrams by a small group of friends. They were a good mental exercise, as well as being quite entertaining." His smile broadened, and it was clear to Luke and Mara that the newborn clone was remembering those games with honest enjoyment of his own. Placing a blue-skinned hand on the side of the bacta tank, he added, "First rule of survival in those games: you _always_ carry healing potions."

He looked around. "Of course, on one of our smaller Clawcraft fighters, the bacta unit would not have been there. But for the Fortress of the Hand, it was decided that we should keep a fleet of something more innovative and versatile."

"So this is not a traditional Chiss fighter ship?" Mara asked. "It does seem more like a combination fighter and small transport."

"It was an experimental design called a Talon," Thraawn answered. He ran a hand appraisingly along the curve of one wall. There was a certain open-eyed curiosity in his expression, as if this was the first time he had experienced such a thing - which of course it was. "This is not exactly as I remember it from the blueprint schematics. Someone must have continued to enhance and modify the design after my latest memories of it."

He looked thoughtfully around at the interior of the compact but versatile ship. "It certainly is an improvement on my early ideas." Again, he caught himself. "Wait, not _my_ ideas. I really must devote some time and meditation to getting used to this."

As they ate, the talk turned back to the topic of Coruscant, where they would be arriving in another few days. The four companions all agreed that they should go there, but the question of what might happen when they arrived was another matter.

"There will be a great deal of fear," Thraawn said gravely. "I have no wish to cause unnecessary alarm, but it seems inevitable that people will be frightened of me."

"_We_ certainly were," Mara said quietly, still feeling the guilt of their initial reaction to him and the choices they'd made.

"I know," Luke said. "As for Coruscant, I said it before: it's hard to imagine our young Grand Admiral's arrival _not_ terrifying everyone to the point of panic."

"But I'm not an Imperial Grand Admiral," Thraawn said, faintly surprised. "I hold no special rank whatsoever. Surely that's obvious? And if I'm not pretending to be Thrawn himself, there is no reason for me to claim a title that is not mine." He laughed shortly. "No, I am a civilian. I wonder what Coruscant and the rest of the galaxy will make of that?"

* * *

**And now, a special preview of the next chapter!**

**Back on Coruscant, Thraawn and his companions come face to face with a society that fears and distrusts the days-old clone for his father's actions. On top of that, there are many who will hate and look down on him simply for **_**being**_** a clone. But the original Thrawn faced prejudice too when he first came to Coruscant - and Thraawn remembers it all:**

"Cruising over Imperial City for the first time is a breathtaking sight, sure to cause awe and wonder in even the most inferior species," Thraawn quoted, remembering the first time Thrawn had flown over this expanse.

Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade turned to him with an identical pair of scandalized expressions. "What?" Luke asked cautiously after a moment's pause.

"It is from the 'Coruscant Information Report' by a certain Pollux Hax," Thraawn answered coolly, allowing a hint of his disdain to make it into his voice. "Thrawn was offered a copy en route to this world when he first came to the Empire. It's a rather transparent little document, full of obvious psychological manipulation and outright lies. It's also very informative, if you know how to read it."

"Which Thrawn did," Mara put in.

"Of course he did," Thraawn said. "It, too, is a work of creative art, however base its author's motive may have been. His prejudices and those of his government quickly became very clear to my father, from that and many other sources."

He fell silent, gazing out the viewport. "Thrawn knew perfectly well that the 'inferior species' insult was meant to refer to people like himself, and yet he still felt the wonder," the young clone said a moment later, still watching the majestic city sweeping by. "As I do now."

**Don't miss "Second Chances, Chapter 2: Widespread Panic!"**


End file.
